The holy city of Tzfat - The Kavanah Show on 101.9 ChaiFm - Rabbi Alon Anava

We bring the news. We bring it live. This is 101.9 High FM. Good morning and welcome to the Kabbalah show body, mind and soul of Emunah. And we are live again from Safed, all the way from Safed, Israel. And it is so good to have you with us on board. And privileged again to have Rabbi Alon Anava as my co-host {slash} guest. And we just again a little bit about Rabbi Alon Anava. He had an incredible near-death experience. It's almost How long ago you 15 years ago. It's now 15 years ago. And it's just do yourself the biggest favor and to go to his website. AlonAnava.com And there's also website www.alonanava.com. And you will see a 1-hour version, a 2-hour version and many, many questions that listeners, followers have posed to Alon and well, he can answer anything and to receives a lot of emails, thousands of emails a day. So, this morning we are the um the we are the 9th of Sivan in the year 5776. And we are the 15th of June 2016 and we are a couple of days just after Shavuot. So, for us it's Shavuot ended Sunday night in Eretz Israel. And for everybody else it ended on Monday night. So, that was a very, very strange experience for me. I must I must admit. I was kind of waiting for for more and now the but but I just had to make do with with whatever it is I received and to actually digest that. And I suppose it's part of the the transition in coming to Eretz Israel. There's the there just is so much not only physically but as I always say spiritually. So, this morning welcome Alon and thank you so much for for um being my wingman, being my co-host and for for doing most of the talking in in terms of the shows that we've been doing together. You know, I just feel that you have so much to offer in terms of the the listeners just love to hear from you, to hear about you. To and again if there's any questions we have access to the SMS line here in Israel and if you just at 1.50 an SMS at 34519 and the the emails are free. So, if you you're welcome to SMS us on air at highfm.com. And also some last week somebody phoned in on the 0746547335 number. If there's any questions. So, last week we spoke we were were asking about why am I Jewish? And we were asking why am I alive? And then I did pose a question to the listeners what is meaningful to one's life? And I suppose that people had a lot of chance to to really think about that after Shavuot. If anybody wants to answer those questions or to answer that particular question on what is meaningful to you in your life please feel please feel free to SMS us. So, this morning Alon we've spoken about this a number of times in going into a little bit of the history of the the Kabbalistic aspects of Safed. And you have a wealth of knowledge and information and experience in the time that you've been here and of course in your rabbinical studies. So, welcome and good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I wanted first to add one thing about what you said regarding to the holiday of Shavuot. You said that you were expecting another day. You know, besides the fact that we celebrate two days in the diaspora because of the original way that they didn't they weren't certain about the which day is the head of the month. Yes. We're going to see very soon a very interesting connection to the city of Safed about that. But it started because the way they used to set up the head of the month was according to the moon. And we're going to talk about it in a second because Safed has a big connection to that. But they used to send out people and wait for witnesses to come to the courthouse and testify that they saw the moon. And once two witnesses, kosher witnesses would come and testify that they saw the moon, then the Beit Din, the court at the time would say, "Okay, today is Rosh Chodesh." And then they would have two weeks to let everybody know. And it says that it took them about two weeks for the messengers to to go across Israel and outside of Israel to let everybody know that the Beit Din, the courthouse decided that Rosh Chodesh would be, you know, whatever day it was. And according to that they knew how to celebrate the festivals. The problem became that when people used to live very far away from Jerusalem and it took the messengers much more than two weeks to get there. Sometimes three weeks, sometimes four weeks. So, they would celebrate two days. One would be certain and one would be just in case. So, it's much more to it. I don't want to waste our time on that but that's how it started the fact that we celebrated outside of Israel two days of the festival versus in Israel that is one day. The mystical explanation to that is because Israel spiritually is 10 times higher than than anywhere in the world. We know that the world is called Olam Assiah, the world of Assiah. And Israel is the only land in the world that is considered Olam Yetzirah. These are the four spiritual worlds. We also know that when there there was the flood so there there's the story in the Torah talking about Nimrod. Nimrod, he's the the the the king who threw Avraham Avinu into the fire. Nimrod was the one who started the whole movement after the flood about building the the tower. Nimrod survived the flood. And there are two versions that are saying that one version said because he was such a giant and such a strong man, he actually held the ark on the outside and he was somehow able to survive it. Which that opinion is not so it doesn't make so much sense because we know that the water of the flood was boiling hot water and a man cannot survive it. But the other opinion says that Nimrod just ran away to the land of Israel because he know that there wasn't a flood in Israel. And the flood was over the world but it didn't occur in the land of Israel. So, there's many reasons why we know why we celebrate the the two days outside of Israel but mystically Israel is much more powerful. So, it doesn't need two days. Mystically and and spiritually one day is enough. Yes. So, what you get outside or anywhere in the world for two days in Israel you do it in one day. And it's usually much more powerful even than the two days out in the diaspora. Yes. So, I just wanted to add that that Israel is just much, much more spiritually high. Therefore, we only need one day and it's unbelievable and I wish everybody, all the Jews should enjoy this unbelievable power. Amen. And let's just go to our first ad break and we'll be back with you now. You've seen them on the History Channel and now they are on your radio. Shirley McClain, I met her when she came to Sun City many years ago. I'm not going to say her age but she must be 100. On Wednesday it seems to be hump day. Wednesday is not a humping day, it's hump day. Yes. Porn stars South Africa. The other thing about the thing about diamond, diamonds are forever. Diamonds are girl's best friend. Diamonds are man's worst enemy. So, do you know that Chuck Norris cut an onion? The onion cries, you know that? Do you know Chuck Norris once killed a man twice? Join Roy and his team for honest, irreverent and entertaining radio every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. From the top. From Johannesburg to Israel. To business. This is 101.9 High FM. Good morning and welcome to the Kabbalah show body, mind and soul of Emunah. And this morning it's Alon, Rabbi Alon Anava and myself hosting the show here live in Safed from Safed. And Alon has just given an amazing insight into the the why we have one day for all the Chagim except it's Rosh Rosh Hashanah where we do um have two days. And um thank you so much, Alon. And as uh I was introducing the show, we were going to uh delve a little bit into the the aspects of the how the the the history, the uh the how but um being the the second holiest city in uh the whole of Eretz Yisrael, gained its its giganticism in terms of the Mekubalim, the the Kabbalists that came here and are buried here. It you you As you come here, you you can you can just feel it. You can't describe it, but you can just feel it. So, the history of Tzfat it starts uh almost in the beginning of the world. Uh Tzfat is well known that it's a located in the north of Israel. Uh it's the tallest city in Israel. There are a few more mountains that are higher than the the mountain where Tzfat is sitting on, Mount Chevron and a few more, but it's the highest point in Israel that people live on. Uh if I'm not mistaken, we are 900 m over uh sea level. I'm not 100% but we're about 900 m over sea level and it's one of the cities that is surrounded by mountains. So, even according to Halakha, we don't need a what's called a Eruv in the city Mhm. because we are secluded and we're surrounded by mountains. There is an Eruv in Tzfat, but even according to Halakha, we don't need an Eruv here. An Eruv is allowing us to carry on Shabbat. Yes. So, Tzfat starts by being elevated, by being on the top, and being on the highest point in in Eretz Yisrael. But Tzfat you can talk about probably for five shows and we'll never never finish it. But uh the history of Tzfat starts right after the flood. We mentioned before the flood. And just a few points in history about about uh uh Tzfat is that in the book of Shoftim of Judges, when the land was divided to the tribes, then the tribe of Naftali got the area of Tzfat, which actually the tribe of Issachar was considered the learned one, but this is what history says that Tzfat was the in the the portion where the tribe of Naftali got. And in the in the Talmud in the Yerushalmi Talmud, it's talking about that Tzfat is one of the five cities that they would light the bonfires to let the other cities know about Rosh Chodesh. Wow. So, what I said before that the the Sanhedrin, the the Beit Din, the court would decree when would be the Rosh Chodesh and one of the ways that they used to to let other cities know that there were five cities that would light on their mount on their hilltops fire and the smoke and the fire would be a signal to the next city. They stopped that at some point because there were a group of people that wanted to make trouble and they would light fire on the wrong days. So, that's why they started sending messages. So, Tzfat was one of these five cities. But to to kind of see a few hints why Tzfat became such a learning center is that right after the flood the son of Noach, Noach had already three sons, Shem, Ham, and Yefet, and we are descendants of Shem. Right after the flood, they had to populate the world and Shem located himself in the city of Tzfat. And he took his son Ever and they started the first Yeshiva in the history of the world. And it's right around the corner from where we live. It's about 50 m from us right now as we speak. is it? Uh this is the famous Yeshiva that all the forefathers learned there. Avraham Avinu was there, Yitzchak and Yaakov. That's the Yeshiva that when Avraham Avinu left Charan, then he he he got to Shem and Ever and he studied there for years as we can see in the Torah. The Torah is talking about Avraham Avinu when he was born and then it jumps forward 75 years. So, in those 75 years, there was a very long period that Avraham Avinu left Charan and he he came to Tzfat to Shem and Ever to learn. Later on, we see in the Torah when Yaakov Avinu had to run away, he also went to to to Tzfat for 14 years to study by Shem and Ever. And literally 50 m from where we live, you can go and visit the cave. Yes. And there's a there's a Yeshiva there now. There's a synagogue there now, but there's the actual cave that we believe that that's the cave that they really sat and learned Torah. And we know that all the teachings of Kabbalah came from Shem and Ever because the core of Kabbalah, the the original teaching came from Adam HaRishon. Adam HaRishon was the first Mekubal because he saw the Kadosh Baruch Hu. He he was the first student. Not only that, before they sinned, they had the ability to see to see the power and the revelation of God. Later on, after they sinned, they went down in their level and they they became physical like us. Not exactly like us. Even when the Adam HaRishon became physical, he was much in a much higher level than us. But before he sinned, he literally saw the godly power that enlivens the world. We know how Adam HaRishon used to Kadosh Baruch Hu used to bring to him all the animals and he named them. And he named everything cuz he saw the godly power that's enlivening the animal and he said, "Okay, this would be called a a lion. This would be a giraffe." and so forth. So, Adam HaRishon, he got all the original information of Kabbalah. The first Kabbalah book that is known to us is called Sefer Yetzirah that it's it's connected more to Avraham Avinu. It says that Avraham Avinu actually compiled it, but the information he actually got from Adam HaRishon that passed it to his son that passed it to to to Noach and so forth till it came to Avraham Avinu that came to the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. It says that the the second hand was Sheth. Sheth was one of the Adam's sons. So, Adam HaRishon already passed over a lot of Kabbalah information through the first 2,000 years. So, the first Kabbalistic Yeshiva is the the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever that is right here in Tzfat. And for thousands of years, you know, Israel, you know, was constantly occupied and not occupied. But the next period that it's talking about the city of Tzfat, it's at the time of the Talmud. And we see that the the greatest Tanna that started the the next era of Kabbalah is Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He actually didn't live in Tzfat. He lived in in Meron, which is about 9 km from us. Aerial, it's maybe 3 or 4 km. It's 9 km cuz you're going through the winding mountains. But from our house, our entire view is Mount Meron and we see directly into the cave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. So, aerial, I think it's about maybe 3 to 5 km from us, which is very very close. So, it's known that the that a Tzadik he chooses where to be buried because he knows that that will be the the place where he rests forever till Mashiach comes. And that's going to be the the gate of of the heavens, the channel where he's going from the higher world to the lower world. It says in the Zohar that the Tzadikim are greater in their death than they're when they're alive, meaning that when they're alive, they're huge, they're giants, but they're limited to their body. So, they can only do you know, they're very limited with what they can do. But once they leave this world, they're much greater because they don't have a body and they can visit the higher world, they come down to the lower world, and so forth. So, we definitely know that the Tzadikim, the great Tzadikim, their souls are, you know, visiting this world constantly. So, the place where the Tzadik, where the righteous man or woman chooses to be buried, it's by default it's a holy place. The Arizal, who we're going to talk about the whole era of the of the Arizal, he says that the there are four holy cities in Israel, Jerusalem, Beit Lechem Chevron, Tiberias, and Tzfat, which they correspond to each one of the four elements that create the world, the spiritual and the physical world. Yerushalayim is fire and we see that the hint for that is to do the sacrifices in Yerushalayim. Chevron is is compared to afar to earth. We see that the cave, the Me'arat Hamachpelah, is is there where all the Adam and Chava buried there, Avraham and Sarah buried there, all the forefathers, except Rachel. And Tiberias is the third holy city and this corresponds to water, to the element of water. And we see that we have the Kinneret there. And the fourth city is Tzfat, which corresponds to the element of air. The Arizal says that the four the four uh holy cities are these ones and Arizal explains that all year round and it never left that the Shekhinah, the the godly presence, is hovering over Tzfat. And if a source like the Arizal says that, it means that it's still valid and it means that the holy presence, the same way that it's shining over Jerusalem, it's shining the exact same power over Safed. Okay, we're just going to go to our next ad break and we'll be be back with you now. Picture this. You are in Israel. You get into a taxi. The radio comes on. [Music] The beat of the day, the world's largest Jewish music program. Now, we bring you the experience right here from sunny South Africa on 101.9 High FM. The beat of the day, weeknights at 8:00 p.m. An all Hebrew show straight from Israel, where you will hear the latest Jewish music from around the world. 101.9 High FM. 101.9 MHz of the latest Jewish music. Repeats weekdays at 6:00 a.m. The best part of your day, the heart of your community. All the music. [Music] Good morning and welcome to the Kabbalah show, Body, Mind and Soul of you Mona, and we are live from Safed. And I've just got a message here that I'll just want to read out from Chaim. Shalom Kabbalah and Alon. Thank you for responding to my email and I'm making Aliyah in February. I'm also glad to have got to talk from That's from Chaim. So, obviously you got to to speak to him, which is wonderful absolutely wonderful. Thank you Chaim for the message. So, Alon, just before the break you were speaking about the the four cities in uh Eretz Israel and corresponding to the elements and the how they all do correspond to the elements and then carry on from there. So, so we're we're already know based on the teachings of Kabbalah that that these four holy cities correspond to the four elements that were that were used to create the world and even the spiritual world. So, Safed was always considering the element of air, the element of spirituality, and it was always chosen to be the center of learning. Why? We don't know. It's almost like saying why was Jerusalem chosen to be the place where the holy temple will be? Because that's where God chose it to be. But we see already from history that in the beginning, like we said, Shem and Ever, they came to Safed. They chose to to to inhabit the place and populate the place and be the first learning center in the world. And might one might say the first Kabbalah Kabbalah center in the world because they were only teaching Kabbalah. They didn't have anything else then. Then Abraham Avinu came here and Jacob Avinu came. And then with the generations for a certain a period of time, there was nobody here. And then came here the great Tanna of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai that he's the first one who really started teaching the the mysticism of the Torah. For many years he wasn't even teaching. He was only teaching his students. For thousands of years, the Zohar was not even revealed. To be more exact exact, 1,500 years from the time of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai till the Ariza. We know even the Ariza himself that came to Safed didn't have the actual book of Zohar. He knew about it. He had scripts scripts of it, but he didn't actually have it. But Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai also chose this place to be his place of burial. So, we see from all this that Safed has a a magnet, has some type of magnetic force specifically for the teaching of the spiritual and mystical part of the Torah. Again, why? We don't know. It's almost like asking certain questions why why why anything that God chooses. But obviously our our history and the pillars of our Torah chose this place. I mean, anyone who just steps foot here can feel that the the magnetic power, this force here is unbelievable. And around the the 16th century, before that, the Israel was not really populated by Jews. But after the Spanish Inquisition and then the deportation of all the Jews from that area, the the most of the rabbis of that area came to Safed. And it started with the generation of Maran of Joseph Caro and Moshe Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who's known as the Ramak. And many more other tzadikim, the Arish, the Abuhav, who sent here his students. Many tzadikim came to this city to inhabit this city. Uh there's no reason why they came to here. I believe that in their spiritual level, they knew that this is a very high and spiritual city. More than that, at the time, like now we don't have this problem, but at the time, elevated cities were considered guarded cities and the cities that they won't be attacked, cities that there's not going to be wars so fast against them. I'm sure they had there also their physical calculations, but spiritually I know that they came here because up until today, people who want to write books, they come here for three, four months and it's quiet here. There's no distractions here. The spiritual air here is unbelievable. I have a friend who wrote already seven books. Of course, the books that have to do with the teachings of Torah. And every time he he wants to write a book, he comes to Safed for three, four months and he rents himself a small apartment and he sits here for a couple months to write his books. And the air here the air here is unbelievably crisp and and clear. And I see for myself that when I learn here, the the ability to absorb is unbelievable. So, we can see why these these sages decided to come to here. But around the end of the 60s 60 16th century, started Safed started becoming a center learning center. And especially for the mysticism of the Torah. And it started with the Ramak. Ramak is the acronym of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who was known to be the the great Rebbe of the generation, who later on became the Rebbe of the Ariza. I keep mentioning the Ariza in case anyone of the listeners doesn't know who I'm talking about. His name is Isaac Luria, Rabbi Isaac Luria. The Ari is a is a acronym of his name, Ashkenazi Rabbi Isaac. So, his last name is Luria. And he is the pillar of the the Kabbalistic era of the 16th century. Most of the Kabbalah books that came after that era is from his teachings. He actually didn't write any books. He just had his his scripts. And his students that the main one is Rabbi Chaim Vital, he wrote most of his books. And the Ariza was known to be an unbelievable neshama. And he started his life off in Jerusalem and then after his father died when he was very young, his mother and him left to Egypt to his uncle. And he would go every day to the river and Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah would appear to him and would teaching the secrets of Kabbalah. At some point he told him that he has to go to Safed to to find certain individuals. He meant the Ramak and the Rabbi Chaim Vital. And then he made his way up to Safed. And he was only 36 at the time. And when he came, he went to the Rebbe of the generation, who was the Ramak, who has unbelievable depth of teachings of Kabbalah. And and wrote several Kabbalah books. And at the time when he came, he told him that he was sent to him. Of course, the Ramak, you know, thought, "Okay, who's this young boy coming here to try to to impress me?" But very soon the Ariza proved himself to be something not ordinary. And at some point he went to Rabbi Chaim Vital, who was later became his student, and he told him that he was sent from Shamayim, from the heavens, to come and teach him. Imagine now, 36-year-old yeshiva bachur, comes to one of the pillars of the generation and tells him, "I was sent to teach you." Needless to say, Rabbi Chaim Vital thought it's a joke and he started questioning him and giving him all sorts of hard questions. And every question that he gave, the Ariza answered him depth over depth and unbelievable answers. Very quickly he noticed that this is not some uh regular yeshiva bachur. And right away he told him, "I want you to teach me everything." So, the Ariza took Rabbi Chaim Vital to the Kinneret, to the river that right that is right on the right next to Tiberias and is very close to Safed. And we know that the well of Miriam is somewhere there. We don't know where, but the well of Miriam is there. And the Ariza gave Rabbi Chaim Vital one cup of the water from the well of Miriam and his wellsprings of knowledge opened and they and he taught him the depth of the teachings of the mysticism and Kabbalah. Unfortunately, we don't know where that well is. If or if not, we would go and drink there every day. But The that's the time that the Ari Zal was here and most of the Kabbalah teachings that we have right now comes from the Ari Zal. I mean, we have a few Kabbalah books like the Sefer Yetzirah and we have the Zohar and there's teachings from the Ramchal and and and and Maharal. There's many different types of Kabbalah teachings and mysticism. But it kind of all funneled into the era of the Ari Zal and most of the Kabbalistic teachings it's called the the the the Luria the Kabbalah the Kabbalistic teachings of Luria because it came from him. There are many types of other Kabbalah. But the the processes of of of the Ari Zal which started from his Talmudim his disciples one of them there's Rabbi Chaim Vital. It went down through the Chida Shiloni and then to the Baal Shem Tov and then from the Baal Shem Tov to all his students starting from the Maggid from Mezritch down to all the the seven students that are known like Rabbi Nachman from Breslov the Alter Rebbe from Chabad the Yismach Moshe from Satmar and so forth and the Bet Ha Levi from Barditchov and they started the whole Chassidic movement which all the Chassidic teachings is based on the teachings of Kabbalah of the Ari Zal. So I keep mentioning the Ari Zal all the time but he's the main pillar in the teachings of Kabbalah and most of the Chassidic teachings is based on his teachings. And he decided to seat yourself himself here in Safed. Needless to say he's also buried here and about 150 m from us is the the the cemetery where you can easily find here about 500 graves of tzaddikim uh starting from the Ari Zal himself which right next to him is his son and then is Rabbi Moshe Cordovero who's known as the author of the song Lecha Dodi that we sing every Shabbat. In front of him is the Ramak his Rabbi Rabbi Rabbi Moshe Cordovero is also the also the Radbaz is here who was once one of the pillars of the generation. And then you go maybe 30 m down and is Maran Yosef Caro who wrote the Shulchan Aruch and next to him the Abuhav and the Alshich and it goes on and on and you can spend days next to all these graves. At the time even though it was a it was a source of the mystical teachings of of the Torah at the same time also the the the foundation of oral Torah was based here. The the Maran Bet Yosef who wrote the Shulchan Aruch Yosef Caro all these rabbis they all originated from the area of Spain. You can even see their names Caro and Cordovero and all the the these Spanish names. They all moved themselves over here. So not only the teachings of mysticism started in Safed also the oral Torah was brought down through Yosef Caro and written the Shulchan Aruch. And it's unbelievable because you walk around the streets here of the old city and every 10 m is a different synagogue of one of these sages. Like you can pray whenever you want in the shul of Yosef Caro of the Ari Zal of the of the Alshich. Just now on Shavuot we we we had a little a shiur on the night of Shavuot. Later on the men we sat together and we read the tikkun. Around 4:20 in the morning we went to the mikveh of the Ari Zal which we're going to talk B'ezrat Hashem we'll have a few minutes to just talk about the mikveh of the Ari Zal. So we all went there to the mikveh 4:00 in the morning. It's only about 400 steps to go down the hill and into the cemetery where the mikveh is. We all dipped in this unbelievable mikveh and right after that we you know everybody was debating which shul should we go to. So it's known that one of the shuls here is called the Abuhav. This is known named after the great teacher Yitzchak Abuhav who actually never merited to come to Safed but he sent his students to Safed and they he has a synagogue here and in the synagogue is the oldest Torah book in in the world. And there are two Torah books. One of them was written by the Ari Zal and one of them was written by the Yitzchak Abuhav. And we had the zchut on on the holiday of Shavuot 5:00 in the morning we prayed an early Shacharit and we had the merit that they opened the ark once a year to take out these books. And we read out of the Torah from the holy book of the Ari Zal and the holy book of the Abuhav which was an unbelievable experience. I mean for all my life of being religious was in the the United States and it's so not holy and here I am in the city of Safed standing in a 500 year old shul which if you're interested to see how it it looks just go to Google and Google Abuhav shul in Safed. There's unbelievable pictures. It's it's it was a little bit damaged by the the earthquakes and that hit Safed but it's restored and and it's unbelievable and the the the spirituality and the holiness just to go to the mikveh 4:00 in the morning and then go climb up to go to the shul. I'm assuming there was a couple hundred people there. The energy was not normal. And then they opened the ark that is locked the entire year and taking out 500 year old book of Sefer Torah that the Ari Zal wrote just looking at it and just touching it is unbelievable experience. You don't get it anywhere else. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And needless to say that the experience was beyond beyond amazing and I had a lot of guests that that tagged along. Some guests came from from the United States. Some guests came from different places. Needless to say the experience was unbelievable. But the in the little alleys of Safed it's just unbelievable. You you're walking in the alleys and you feel that you're 500 years in back in time. Everything is is is exactly how it was. Synagogues from 500 years ago and just knowing that these pillars of our Torah lived here and and learned here it's unbelievable. And walked here and it's like being in a time machine. Um often get a sense of a past present and future all wrapped up in one in in a split in a split second and it's it's um it's yeah it's an experience that is unbelievable to actually describe. Probably poetry would do the the best justice to it if if any justice could be done to it. I just want to add something Mark please God my my future son-in-law that went with you um to uh the the mikveh of the Ari. The following day um after that experience he was speechless for the entire day. He could not talk. And I just watched his face. I just watched his facial expressions of it um emotion after emotion after emotion experience after experience almost um biblical going across his face. And um probably in in his later years he will have the words to describe a little bit of what he actually experienced. He was like a transformed person. I saw and saw him. Yes. And he you know he he kept saying you know I haven't been to a mikveh before. He's a he's a young boy and of 23 and so he's he put it down to the fact that he hadn't been to a mikveh before but it was it was far more than that. There's far more uh things happened to him and you you saw that. I definitely saw the the mikveh here of the Ari is is it's a one of the the the wonders of the universe one might say. And for the viewers the listeners want to see what we're talking about just go to Google and do the Ari Zal mikveh in Safed. There are enough pictures and videos showing it. But when I came first time to Israel I I my my history in a nutshell is I grew up in Israel and I left Israel when I was 23 totally secular. Never said one word of Torah that came out of my mouth and when I was 27 I had a near death experience that caused me to become religious just by seeing the truth. And I always everybody kept telling me you have to go to Safed. This this is right your up your alley. And five years ago when we first came to Safed the first time then uh we we we were needless to say we were stunned by the city. And that night I I don't go to sleep early. I don't like going to sleep early. I find sleeping a waste of time. So around 2:00 in the morning I went to sleep. And I never slept like this in my life. I literally felt that I'm hovering over the bed. And for 2 hours I knew I was asleep but I wasn't asleep. I was up. And I I at 4:00 in the morning I got out of bed. I was like what's going on in this city? Something's very weird in this city. I was literally awake while and I knew I was sleeping. So I I left the the hotel where we stayed and I went down to the mikveh of the Ari Zal at 4:00 in the morning. And after that I went to a little tour and was all the graves and prayed and then I went to pray Shacharit and when I came home I told my wife something's this place is not normal. And Baruch Hashem Hashem had the the the kindness to bring us back here after it's 5 years to live here. But the mikveh of the Ari Zal, first of all, it's in a cave. And you can't really see it in the pictures, even if you go on Google and you Google it, you're not going to see it from the pictures, but you go in a cave. And the mikveh of the Ari Zal, nobody know knows where the water is coming from. This is the original, the most highest level mikveh possible. Cuz mikveh can be uh rainwater that is captured and then there's a whole process how to make it a kosher mikveh. Of course, uh you know, there's different laws how an ocean can be a mikveh, a river, but a live wellspring, this is the the highest uh purest level of a mikveh. And this is the mikveh of the Ari Zal and nobody knows where the water is coming from. In the cave, there's a crack in the wall that if you bend and you come with a flashlight, I actually took once a video of it. If you bend very like real low and you look into the crack, you see where the water is coming from. Like I mean, it's coming from the wall. Nobody really knows where it's coming from. The water is so pure, people come with their with their bottles to to fill it up and you never tasted such sweet water. And the mikveh, people hundreds of people dip there. It's crystal clear. There's no filters there, there's nothing there. And first of all, needless to say, it's free it's ice cold. It's freezing freezing cold mikveh. Which is unbelievable. And when you go in, the sensation is not normal because you going into ice freezing mikveh. And I feel it, I don't know about other people. After 30 seconds to a minute in the mikveh up until my knees, it feels like warm water. Like like you're in a jacuzzi or something. And really nobody really knows where the water is coming from. We know it's coming from some wellspring, but nobody really knows where. The story is that the Ari Zal came there and the water just started coming towards him. The Ari Zal gave a promise that that whoever will dip in his mikveh is guaranteed to leave this world with doing chuva. Now, I didn't say enough about the Ari Zal. Maybe we'll Hashem one one time will dedicate some more time just to talking to him. I keep saying Ari Zal, Ari Zal. This is not a normal man that we can uh say, "Okay, it's a great rabbi." He was known to have one of the most highest level of what's called Ruach Hakodesh. Ruach Hakodesh is not not exactly holy spirit, but it's a power of of prophecy. But not only that, Ruach Hakodesh is is a high level of of spirituality that he literally saw through walls. He would look at a person, he would see all his reincarnations. Uh he would walk The reason why we know all the graves of all the sages around here and around Safed in the radius of 30 km, most of the sages are buried. Like if you go to the area of Tiberias, there there there are hundreds Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, the Ramchal, the Rambam. Anywhere you go in the north, there's hundreds, if not thousands, of all the graves. Now, nobody knew where they are. The Ari Zal would walk and he would hear the whispering from the grave and said, "Oh, here is buried Rabbi Yossi Aglili and here is buried the Tanna such and such." He would listen and he would hear their talking. That's how we know where the graves are. And the Ari Zal was such a such a giant that, you know, the giants of the generation like Yosef Caro, the Ramak, Rabbi Chaim Vital, they were dwarves next to him. And every person who wanted to come to him, he had an angel coming to him and telling him, "This person is about to come. This is the answer you should give him." So the Ari Zal is is an unbelievable level. We don't We can't even relate to the level of the Ari Zal that what we have from his teachings is not even a fraction of what he actually really wrote because he would write his scripts and then burn them. Because he didn't want anybody to find it. He said, "If somebody would find it, they would might use it the wrong way." And what we have from his scripts is literally maybe not even 1% of what he actually really wrote. And he didn't want people to see what he's writing. He The stories of the Ari Zal that phenomenal stories of unbelievable depth of of of It's unbelievable, literally unbelievable. So he he I don't know if he he literally built a mikveh, but the story is that the water actually rolls to him. And exactly like you said, people go to this mikveh, they change they're changed for life. Literally changed for life. I can quite well believe that. We're just going to go to our next break and we'll be back with you now. Good morning and welcome to the Kabbalah show by the mountains soul. And I have the privilege to prove privilege sitting next to me Rabbi Alon Anava. And uh Alon has been sharing with us the the history of Safed and speaking a lot about the mikveh of the Ari Zal. And as he said earlier on that we could speak a show upon show upon show just to touch the surface of what the Ari Zal brought to our physical earth. And just in the break we were talking about Safed, the the the the absolute mind-bogglingness of being able to go to the the Ari the Ari Zal's mikveh every single day that you have that privilege. And and and and and and and and and so many more um of the Mekubalim that are that lived here in Safed that contributed towards Safed. Uh and just So we don't have much time, but just in in the next um 7 minutes that we've got to wrap up what are the the the really um powerful uh thoughts that come to your mind just to share with the listener. And please God we will do more shows on the the the Ari. Well, there there there's It's almost almost impossible to summarize things so fast. But I can share my my personal experience that when I go to Jerusalem, you literally feel the fire there. And when people come and move to Israel, okay, people populate in big big cities, but a lot of people they they look for a city that that's really relates to the element of their soul because our soul is built from these four elements. And one of the elements is always dominating and then there's one element that is the least dominating and another two that are kind of equal. And people that their element of fire is dominating, they'll be drawn to Yerushalayim. And people who their element of air is dominating will be drawn to Safed. And it says in the Talmud in the Gemara that the air of Eretz Yisrael of the land of Israel makes you smarter. And you really feel it here. You really feel that the air here is unbelievable and I can tell from my own experience that right now, sunrise is about 4:30. 4:30, it's when the star the star the sky is turning to blue. And so from 4:30 to 5:20, I I sit on my porch and my porch is is I feel like the most luckiest man in the world because God brought me to Eretz Yisrael and placed me on the top hill of Safed, which within a 5-minute walk I'm everywhere. And like I said, I'm literally 50 m from Shem and Ever and you can feel the the the waves coming from there. And I'm a 10-minute walk down to the cemetery. And I know it sounds scary a cemetery, but this is a cemetery of holy people. And my view is Mount Meron and I'm looking right at Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And and I sit on my porch and I learn and it's around 4:30 in the morning to 5:20, the light that you see is not a normal light. It's a total different light that you can only see it in Israel and and I know and I'm saying it from experience because I before I became religious, I traveled for years around the world. There's not one place in the world that my foot didn't step there. And I traveled in the Far East for for a long time and in Australia my all my mom is Australian, so I went there a long time and North America, South America, I traveled everywhere. There's not such a light in even in Israel. This it's this deep deep blue light that it it's as if there's a different dimension here. It's not the dimension that we see. It has an extra dimension here. And and I feel I can say for myself that I feel here in Safed that literally every word you of Torah you say here is like 500 million words of Torah anywhere else. And the depth of the learning here is unbelievable. And not only not not for no reason Shem and Ever came here to start a yeshiva and then Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai came here to learn and then the all the Mekubalim came here. And now you see that Safed is the capital of spiritual teachings of the world. There are numerous yeshivas, numerous seminaries, unbelievable amount of people all come here to to to to get a little bite out of this spiritual city. It's a very small city. Baruch Hashem. Uh even though we're starting to populate it lately, but the place here is is a a magnetic field of holiness. And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that when Mashiach is going to come, he's going to come through Safed first. Before he goes to Yerushalayim, he's coming through Safed. There's an alley. There's one of the alleys here. It's called the alley of Mashiach that there was a certain lady who used to sit there every day and wait for him to come. And if we have a promise from the Tanna, from the sage of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, it means Mashiach is coming through Safed on his way to Yerushalayim. And if Mashiach is choosing to come through this city, it just goes to show to you the the the how special this city is. I definitely urge anyone to first go online and and see these beautiful sites. I believe there's many websites and pictures and videos to see. And the the earliest opportunity you can, you have to come and visit here. It's an unbelievable city. And b'ezrat Hashem, you know, with the teachings of the Torah that's coming out of the this holy city, it should we should merit that it will bring the coming of Mashiach much much faster. B'ezrat Hashem, then we'll learn the ultimate mysticism of the Torah. When Mashiach is going to come, it says a new Torah is going to come with him. He's going to teach us the depth of the Torah. We know that simple things that seem to us like very mundane and basic laws in the oral law, we'll see the pearls and their depth in it. B'ezrat Hashem, it should happen very very soon. Amen to that. And I I I know it's opening up as a little bit of of a different subject, but it is linked. And I said to your to your wife, Devorah, that the female energy here in Safed is just is actually mind-blowing. The the the power of the feminine energy. And one of the predictions of the Mashiach's arrival is that the the energy of the feminine is going to to arise. And it's it's it's so palpable here. And it's so acceptable here. It is so beautiful here. It is it's it's blends in with everything else that is happening in Safed. And also just my experience of Safed is it's like living living in the clouds. It's like it's not living on this earth. It's actually I don't feel like I'm part of this earth. I feel if I I travel a little bit away from Safed, I'm going a little bit down into physicality. And that's sometimes is is a little bit scary for me. I'm I'm much more comfortable in the spiritual areas of this world. Sometimes I I do need to put my feet on the ground. However, that's my experience. And so please God Alon that we we'll do many many more shows on sharing with the listeners your vast knowledge of of Safed, of the Ariza, of the what's happening. Because we one of the things we wanted to talk about today was the opening up a seminary here for ladies over 40. So anybody wanting to email Alon or myself or to just email the studio the on air email Alon on air at 5fm.com, Gabanafreedman@5 and Alon www.alonavner.com or alonavner.com. And any questions that you do have, ladies, the doors open. And that's seems to be the show for today. Just Alon, a quick word. Yes, you mentioned about the learning center. B'ezrat Hashem, maybe we'll talk about it uh in one of the future shows. But we are looking for a place to start here a learning center for ladies. You said 40 and up. I mean, we'll accept somebody who's 39. But the point is to to there's no such a learning center in the world for ladies who are married and they want to learn Torah, and they can come for a week or two. And there's not any place in the world for older ladies, whether they're divorced, widowed, single. And and I have hundreds of students. Hundreds, literally hundreds of students of women who are over the age of 40. The majority of them are either single for whatever circumstance, or they're married and they just can't leave their home to go and study. They become religious. They become more observant. And they don't know where to go. They don't have where to go. Cuz they don't they don't want to go to a seminary with 17-year-old or 22-year-olds. So this is the goal right now. We're working very hard to find a building that will allow us to to start the center. B'ezrat Hashem, Hashem will help. Should we we will find a building very soon. We found something, but it didn't work out. And once once we establish that, of course the studies will be local. But we're planning to stream all the the the the classes. They're going to be live. It's going to be literally a learning center that women can come from all over the world, whether it's for a week or for a year. We'll accommodate them with with sleeping arrangements and food. And most important, the unbelievable wellsprings of knowledge of the Torah that will that will allow We have the first group of women coming in the end of August. We still don't have this the actual center, but we have the first group of women coming from from the United States. They're all in their area of their 50s, give or take. Maybe some older, some younger. They're coming in for 10 days. They're going to be sleeping in Safed and eating in Safed. And they're going to be spending most of their day with me. Which we're going to be praying. We're going to be learning. We're going to be traveling. We're going to go to all sorts of beautiful sites. But the main point is to have A lot of them are married. They're just having a 10-day marathon of tasting spirituality and holiness and Torah in the most holiest place in the world and in the capital of Torah. B'ezrat Hashem, we'll be able to establish a big learning center. It's just now depending on finding the building. This is the only thing that's stopping us right now. B'ezrat Hashem, that's going to happen very soon. But hopefully we'll be able to open the first the first and only so far learning center for women in the world in the land of Israel. Which we'll talk about it maybe another time, but the importance of why specifically women. The women are more important than the men. And you said here the feminine part of of Safed, then then this is a very long explanation, but we'll talk about it in another time how the Safed corresponds to the first hey of the name of Yud Kay Vav Kay. And this is called Bina. And this is what's called in Kabbalah the Ima Ila'a, the higher level mother. So that's why you feel this feminine energy here. B'ezrat Hashem, we should talk about it in the next coming uh shows. Okay. Thank you so much, Alon. Thank you so so much for being with me this morning. And with that, it just remains for me to say to have the most beautiful Wednesday, the most beautiful rest of your week, and the most beautiful beautiful Shabbos. And from me, from Gabana Freedman, bye-bye. We bring the news. We bring the action. We bring it live. This is 101.9 5 FM.